With the Kyoto
Treaty dead, environmentalists take incremental approach

By John K. Carlisleweb
posted December 4, 2000

For the moment, Americans can breathe a sigh of relief that the Kyoto
global warming treaty will not turn their standard of living upside down
- but only for a moment.

Negotiated by the Clinton Administration in December 1997, Kyoto would
have required the United States and other industrialized nations to make
economically- drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to combat
the alleged threat of man-made global warming.

But the U.S. and more than 170 nations, convening at a United Nations
meeting in The Hague, Netherlands between November 13-25, were unable
to agree on terms implementing the treaty. The main disagreement centered
on a bitter dispute between the U.S. and the European Union on whether
the U.S. could count its forests toward meeting its greenhouse gas reduction
targets. U.S. negotiators desperately pressed for more economically-friendly
ways to meet Kyoto's onerous goals. According to the U.S. Energy Information
Agency, Kyoto would cost the U.S. economy $400 billion per year, raise
electric utility bills by 80 to 85 per cent and impose a permanent "Kyoto
gasoline tax" of 45 to 55 cents per gallon. [1]

Because forests absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide, American
negotiators wanted to count its forests and other "carbon sinks"
toward its emissions reductions targets. By counting the carbon dioxide
absorbed by forests, the U.S. would not have had to rely as much on onerous
- and politically unacceptable - carbon taxes and regulations to meet
Kyoto's emissions reductions targets. However, European nations objected
that the U.S. was trying to dodge its treaty obligations and rejected
a last minute compromise that would have allowed the U.S. to include forests.
[2]

U.S. chief negotiator Frank Loy is hit in the face
with a custard pie by a protester angry at what activists say is U.S.
reluctance to do anything meaningful to fight global warming at United
Nations climate talks in the Hague November 22, 2000

Commenting on the European refusal to compromise on the "carbon
sinks," Frank Loy, the chief U.S. negotiator at The Hague said, "I
think it is fair to say that was a pretty important opportunity that was
not cashed in on." [3]

The question now is, what next? Even before The Hague debacle, environmentalists
knew that the global warming battle was shifting from the international
arena to the domestic arena. At a Washington, D.C. conference in April,
representatives of major environmental groups, including the Natural Resources
Defense Council and Environmental Defense, agreed that while Kyoto is
politically unrealistic, incremental policies aimed at regulating carbon
dioxide emissions are achievable. That view was echoed by congressional
staff members present at The Hague conference. Said one senate staffer,
"Regardless of the outcome here, the stage is set in Congress next
year to consider addressing this issue in a way that makes economic and
environmental sense." [4]

Indeed, environmentalists are already gearing up their lobbying campaign.
The Aspen Institute recently published a book, U.S. Policy and the Global
Environment: Memos to the President, that will be sent to the new Congress
and President. The thrust of the book's essays is that while it is impossible
to ratify Kyoto, the U.S. can still take unilateral steps that would eventually
bind the U.S. to the treaty in five to ten years. One contributor, John
Holdren, says that instead of pressing for carbon taxes of $100 or $200
per ton as required by Kyoto, Congress could implement a less ambitious
plan that would get "our toes wet with a tax of $20 per ton."
What that translates into is soaking the American people with a $30 billion
tax increase. [5]

It never occurs to environmentalists that these costly carbon taxes purport
to address a problem that may not exist. Many scientists, including some
of those who subscribe to the global warming theory, do not believe that
rising carbon dioxide levels are contributing to global warming. Dr. James
Hansen, the godfather of the global warming theorists, says that "it
is the non-CO2 [Greenhouse Gases] that have caused most observed warming."
[6] Other scientists do not even believe humans are responsible for global
warming.

Several European and American scientists say that data from the European
Space Agency's (ESA) Soho satellite show that the Sun, not human burning
of fossil fuels, is the main cause of the global warming that occurred
between 1850 and the mid-20th century. Paul Brekke, Soho's deputy project
scientist, says that whatever other merits there may be in taxing fuel,
"our evidence suggests it will not be much help in keeping the Earth
cool." [7]

But environmentalists ignore these facts in their single-minded rush
to foist costly taxes on the American people. Kyoto may be dormant for
now but its spirit is still very much alive.

Footnotes:

1 "Impacts of the Kyoto Protocol on the United States,"
Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington,
D.C., October 1998.2 Andrew Revkin, "U.N. Conference Fails to Reach Accord on
Global Warming," The New York Times, November 26, 2000.3 Ibid.4 Ibid.5 U.S. Policy and the Global Environment: Memos to the President,
Aspen Institute, Aspen, Colorado, 2000.6 David Wojick, "Hansen Plan Jolts Climate Community,"
Electricity Daily, September 2000.7 Jonathan Leake, "Stronger Sun is Blamed for Global Warming,"
Times of London, September 24, 2000.